Does this scare anyone else?

[razer121]

I'm very intrested to see these pictures!

[Fraz]

I get the gist. If a proton at ~C is a lot of energy then a Lead ion at 208 is a metric buttload of energy.

Well, the mass number isn't all that relevant, as the rest-mass energy of the lead ion will be a lot less than the kinetic energy, but you've got the right idea. The important number is the atomic number - i.e. the number of protons. For lead, this is 82, so it has a charge of +82 atomic charges. This effectively makes the LHC 82 times more effective at accelerating them.

So... we can currently get a single proton to have an energy of 3.5 TeV, but we'll be able to get the lead ions to each have an energy of 287 TeV.

So, our collider goes from 7 TeV with protons, to 574 TeV with lead ions.

Should be fun

[Fraz]

Some videos for you!

Best to right click on the links and "Save link as..." as they are both quite large avi files.

1st video (~70 Megs) is a standard proton-proton collision as seen by the CMS detector:

Run132440_Event_4285681_Long.avi

2nd video (50 Megs) is one of the first heavy-ion collisions inside CMS, where two lead nuclei are smashed together:

CMS_HICollisions_Run150431_Event541464.avi

You should be able to see that the heavy-ion collisions produces a LOT more tracks in the detector, which makes it a lot harder to figure what the hell is actually going on from a physics perspective.

And here are some still images that are pretty good also: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1305179

[nibbler]

Fraz, I'm thinking you're the perfect guy to explain to me what exactly an electron volt is?

[Fraz]

Fraz, I'm thinking you're the perfect guy to explain to me what exactly an electron volt is?

It's the energy gained by an electron when accelerated across a potential of 1 volt.

So... to give an example, imagine two metal plates separated by a few centimetres with a hole in the middle of them both. Attach one plate to neutral on a power supply, and the other plate attached to +100 volts. If an electron is then passed into the hole on the neutral plate, it'll be accelerated by the electric potential between the two plates. By the time it's reached the exit hole on the positive plate, the electron will have gained 100 electron-volts in energy from the field.

Also, if you want it in Joules, 1 electron volt = 1.602 x 10^-19 Joules. I.e. not a lot.

[j1979]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20101101/...m-15af341.html

first micro black holes start to consume the world. maybe...

more sink holes from around the world ! worried yet ?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/photos/sink...402-slideshow/

[snootyjim]

Are they caused by the large hardon collider then?

[billythewiz]

#3 is scary !!

It would take a lot of electron volts to make that

[j1979]

Are they caused by the large hardon collider then?

i have no idea.. but if "micro black holes" were produced, this is the effect i would predict.

just putting the idea out there

[snootyjim]

i have no idea.. but if "micro black holes" were produced, this is the effect i would predict.

just putting the idea out there

Thing is, if a "micro black hole" was big enough to cause something like that, that would mean it had grown significantly from something on the molecular level.

By that point it would surely have become unstoppable, as the extra mass would collapse in on itself and increase the gravitational pull bit by bit.

I could of course be completely wrong, because I only understand physics to a very basic level, but it seems a bit odd that it would just start to peter out.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure that the hardon collider only creates black holes within itself... creating them in indiscriminate places around the world would be a little unlikely.

[chuckskull]

No sink holes are not caused by micro black holes. It's normally mining to blame for that one. If it were black holes, the sink holes would never stop growing.

Oh and they'd be black.

If you find a sink hole sucking the air, light, sun and moon out of the sky, that might be a black hole, don't worry about it though, if it is the tidal forces will pull you apart momentarily.

[Petra Ceason]

It terrifies me, I find it fascinating, but terrifying, so much so that one of my Short Stories is written about it.
Short Quote:-
"We are going to re-create the conditions in the universe a few nanoseconds after it began.” Interrupted his wife as she always did when he became just a little too patronising. “What if we miss by that few vital nanoseconds, and re create the universe instead?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous!”
“Is this the way the World ends, not with a whimper, but a very Big Bang caused by two very small nuclei travelling at ninety nine percent the speed of light, but in opposite directions, colliding head on?”

But my glass is always half full rather than half empty, there is no point in worrying about the LHC, and Global Warming, and the Yellowstone Caldera, and the Oil running out, and ---.



Petra

[Disturbedguy]

Holy thread revival...

[steve threlfall]

To the top.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...TnNjWrXjki-7Bg

Higgs particle found?

Awesome news

[blueball]

I was once told that a joule is the amount of energy expended by a beetle crawling an inch along a horizontal surface. Could never be bothered working it out to see if it was true or not LOL